Met Gala 2026: Here’s Everything You Need To Know

Every May, the Met Gala floods your feed with extraordinary looks that scroll by in seconds. This year’s exhibition is called “Costume Art,” and the dress code is “Fashion Is Art.” In simple terms, it’s about treating fashion as a serious art form and showing how clothing connects with painting, sculpture, and other works across the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Guests are invited to express their own relationship to fashion as an embodied art form and celebrate the countless depictions of the dressed body throughout art history. Translation? The fits need to hit different this year. No lazy tuxedos. No playing it safe.

Comme des Garçons Spring 2018 | Yannis Vlamos for indigital.tv & Chanel Fall 1997 Couture  | Conde Nast Archive

The related Costume Institute exhibition will bring together nearly 400 objects to explore those links. The event also marks the inauguration of the new Condé M. Nast Galleries, a nearly 12,000-square-foot permanent space dedicated to celebrating the history of fashion. New venue, new era.

Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour will serve as co-chairs of the 2026 Met Gala. Bey is the headline act here (Beyoncé is making her return to the gala after a 10-year absence). That alone is enough to break the internet before a single look even hits the carpet. On the other hand the host committee includes Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz in key roles, alongside Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Gwendoline Christie, Sam Smith, Teyana Taylor, LISA, and A’ja Wilson, among others.

John Galliano Spring 1993 | Conde Nast Archive & Maison Margiela Artisanal 2017

Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of the Costume Institute, had what he called an epiphany: “What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body. It’s the common thread throughout the whole museum.” That’s the whole thesis right there, fashion it’s the invisible thread running through everything, from ancient Greek sculptures to Renaissance paintings to modern photography. The exhibition is basically the Met saying: we’ve been sleeping on this looks, designers or collections the whole time.

Christian Lacroix Fall 2005 Couture | Marcio Madeira & Valentino Fall 2022 Couture | Salvatore Dragone

The exhibition will display almost 200 works of art alongside 200 garments and accessories, divided into three categories: bodies omnipresent in art (the nude form), bodies that are often overlooked (pregnant or aging bodies), and universal bodies (like the anatomical body). And the comparisons are genuinely wild, a quintessentially padded Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons piece sits next to a photograph by German artist Hans Bellmer displaying a similarly bulbous shape, while a classical Greek sculpture is compared to a Fortuny gown from the 1920s that mimics the color and fabrication of the garment portrayed in the ancient work.

McQueen Spring 1999 & Balenciaga Spring 2020  | Filippo Fior

WHAT DOES THE DRESS CODE ACTUALLY MEAN FOR THE CARPET?

The dress code “Fashion Is Art” is intentionally open-ended — which means the carpet could go in a thousand directions. Guests are encouraged to wear garments that could be considered art, feature depictions of art, or were made in collaboration between a fashion designer and an artist. Of course archival pieces, artist collabs, sculptural silhouettes, maybe even garments that literally reference paintings can be expected.

Schiaparelli Fall 2023 Couture | Isidore Montag & Gucci Fall 2017 | Yannis Vlamos for indigital.tv

And if you thought sheer dressing was on the way out, think again. Monday night, the steps of the Met become the gallery. Who’s ready?